I started to follow the Nymphs inside, glancing over at where Max and Cal were hidden, praying to the stars that they could get our families away from that hellish altar quickly.
I followed the Nymphs into the corridor, continuing to point them along as I swept past them, getting turned around in the endless halls despite how many times I’d been here as a kid. I shoved through a door that I was pretty sure was a dining room, but instead turned out to be a large bathroom.
Balls.
They all filed inside after me and I tugged my hood closer around my face. The bright lights in this room would be a dead giveaway if these assholes looked too closely at my face.
Right. I’m in a bathroom full of monsters. Now what?
I cleared my throat, swiping my finger along a gold tap and tutting as I inspected it, trying to buy myself a moment to think.
The Nymphs exchanged a glance and I knew I was running out of time here. I had to come up with some plausible reason that I’d just led them all into this bathroom.
One of the Nymphs started looking at me a little too closely and I ducked my head, clearing my throat again as I leaned down and pretended to inspect the tap, eye to spout.
“This is no good,” I tutted. “No good at all.”
“Um, forgive me, my king, but what is no good?” one of them asked, and hell he had a good question which I didn’t have an answer to.
“The taps of course,” I growled. “They do not gleam as they should gleam.”
“Perhaps you could take that up with your servants, your highness?” a Nymph suggested.
“INSOLENCE!” I bellowed, grabbing a towel and whipping him with it, but the movement knocked my hood back and my concealment spell was unveiled in all its not-quite-rightness.
“Wait, who the fuck are you?” one of the Nymphs snapped. “You’re not our king!”
“Oh my stars, it’s a Vega!” I roared, pointing behind them and like the idiots they were, they all turned and I fucking ducked and ran, blasting them aside with air magic and shooting myself out the door on a furious breeze.
I slammed the door behind me, welding it shut with earth magic, sealing it tighter and tighter with metal until the whole door glinted with it before releasing the concealment covering my body.
A weight slammed into it followed by another and another, but my door didn’t shift.
“Ha!” I cried in excitement, but then a bang sounded as one of the Nymphs broke through the wall, stepping out into the hall with his buddies spilling after him and I yelped in surprise, turning and running back down the halls. But I didn’t turn towards my friends, I delved deeper into the house, throwing magic back over my shoulder as a sea of Nymphs chased my tail.
I blasted doors apart and threw furniture into their way, tossing vases and priceless heirlooms everywhere as I smashed the place to bits in an attempt to slow down my pursuers and keep ahead of their deathly rattles which would lock away my magic.
“Seize him!” someone shouted from a set of open doors to my right and I spotted Vard striding into the house, pointing right at me with a furious expression on his one-eyed face.
I lifted a vase from a table with a gust of air magic, slamming it into his head and making him curse as he shot a blast of fire after me. I ducked it and kept running, howling loudly in encouragement for them to follow. Because so long as they were chasing me, they were nowhere near my family and friends. And I hoped to the fucking moon that they were in the process of getting the fuck out of here.
R age spewed through my mind like acid and a wave of it drove me forward as I stared between the Fae on the ground, tearing through their ranks, the taste of so much blood sending me into a frenzy.
I wanted more. I needed to fill this dark and ceaseless need in me to destroy, ravage, and scourge the land.
The fangs in my mouth tasted of venom, the sharp and bitter tang rolling over my tongue and causing endless pain and suffering to whoever was lucky enough to live on after my bite. But they wouldn’t live for long. Not when the black and tainted poison slid through their veins and claimed them as another victim of mine. Of hers.
Lavinia’s whispers carried in my ears, her voice urging me on and my soul was so deeply tethered to hers even when some part of me reared up and fought against listening to her commands. But it was impossible to refuse them, her words making a fire burn in me that could never be put out, but it wasn’t the fire I knew, it was a wicked thing that devoured every good piece of me whole.
A man appeared before me, his arms outstretched and a plea in his silver ringed eyes. I swiped at him, my claws slashing against a fierce air shield which I fought to tear through, driving him back as I snapped and snarled, trying to break through his defences as he battled to keep them in place.